How It All Began

Friland / Denmark, June 2010: Permaculture Educators' Course with Annemarie Brookman from Australia.
We're learning about learning styles, presenting methods to each other, going on site visits and do Open Space. During one of these Open Spaces, a small group of people discusses how we can make it happen that Permaculture teachers from across Europe can meet on a more regular basis and have space to exchange their knowledge. What we came up with was to create a biannual Permaculture Teachers Convergence – the „ETC“ was born.

During the European Permaculture Convergence (EuPC) in Belgium, which happened the month after, a workshop has been held discussing possible topics of a Teachers’ Convergence, e.g. teaching Permaculture: „What methods are there? How can we teach creatively? How can we be "good tutors" and accompany our students properly?“ or training structures: „Which types of Permaculture training structures are there in Europe and which work? Which can be adapted? Can / do we want to harmonize the education system in Europe?“.

Following this conversation, the first ETC took place in Sieben Linden Ecovillage, Germany in summer 2011. Here, a small number of 12 dedicated PC teachers exchanges in lively discussions about the topics mentioned above – and again about how to continue this exchange. Having heard about Grundtvig Learning Partnerships under the EU-Lifelong Learning Programme from other people in our network, we decided to apply for such a Partnership.

A few months after the ETC, Joe Atkinson of the Permaculture Associan Britain and Sandra Campe from the German Permakultur Akademie used a „Preparatory Visit“ to meet and draft an application, which Joe Atkinson then discussed with the UK National Agency (the place where we have to hand in such a Partnership application). The National Agency said that what we want to do is great – but that it is rather a Leonardo Da Vinci-Partnership (which is dealing with vocational training) than something that fits the Grundtvig funding stream (which deals with general adult education).

This feedback boosted our motivation a lot when we moved ahead to look for additional project partners with the following project aims: to exchange about best practice (pedagogy, methods & curriculum), about how to widen participation (reaching hard-to-reach and disadvantaged learners), about educational structures (organisational structures, processes and standards) and to promote international competences and cultural exchange between European countries.

A Leonardo Da Vinci-Partnership needs to have at least 3 project partners – after sending out our call to our personal contacts among Permaculture Teachers in Europe in autumn 2011, the word spread fast and soon there were 16 partners interested in writing the application, 14 partners finally doing it and handing it in with their National Agencies in January 2012 – and 12 of them getting the funding approval in July 2012 for the period of August 1st, 2012 until July 31st, 2014.

Two partners did not make it beyond the waiting list but were able to join the project anyway, along with more non-funded partners from a number of different European countries.